OAG 61-18.

• Case Date: February 02, 1961
• Court: Oregon

Oregon Attorney General Opinions 1961. OAG 61-18. 139OPINION NO. 61-18[30 Or. Op. Atty. Gen. 139]The Oregon Eugenic Sterilization Act enacted by the Legislative Assembly under the police power and based on scientific facts is presumed constitutional since the Act provides the procedural safeguards of notice, hearing and judicial review.No. 5158February 2, 1961Honorable George Van HoomissenState Representative This is in response to your request for our opinion concerning the constitutionality of ORS chapter 436, commonly referred to as the Eugenics or Sterilization Act. Your request is prompted, as stated by you, because of recent articles appearing in medical and scientific journals indicating a serious conflict of opinion concerning the inheritability of conditions enumerated in eugenic sterilization laws. On the theory that modern scientific investigation shows that idiocy, insanity, imbecility and criminality are congenital and hereditary, the legislatures of several of the states, in the exercise of the police power, have enacted laws providing for the sterilization of such persons. The Oregon law pertaining to eugenic sterilization was passed in 1917 (amended by chapter 194, Oregon Laws 1923). It is typical of this type of legislation. The State Board of Eugenics which administers the Act is composed of members of the Oregon State Board of Health and the heads of certain penal and custodial institutions (Oregon State Hospital, Eastern Oregon State Hospital, F. H. Dammasch State Hospital, Oregon Fairview Home, Oregon State Correctional Institution and the Oregon State Penitentiary). ORS 436.020. The board receives quarterly reports from the heads of institutions plus the MacLaren School for Boys and the Hillcrest School of Oregon. ORS 436.030. The reports name all persons who are feeble-minded, insane, epileptic, habitual criminals, incurable syphilitics, moral degenerates or sexual perverts, who are, or, in the opinion of the institution heads, are likely to become, menaces to society. Also included in the group are persons convicted of committing or attempting to commit the crimes of rape, incest, sodomy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor by sexual act or act of sexual perversion, the crime against nature, an act of sexual perversity either with mankind or beast or an act of sustained osculatory relations with the...